Libya: Seriously, where is this going?

[Ayn Rand]

I think an abortion would be ok since the US and NATO should have abstained instead of taking an advantage to rape the situation.

This unborn democracy has a right to life!

 

[timtofly]

I think the mother's health was too much at risk , and it was a rape.

How do you know it was a democracy? It was still an embryonic war.

 

[Ayn Rand]

I think the mother's health was too much at risk , and it was a rape.

How do you know it was a democracy? It was still an embryonic war.

All democracy starts off in this way - if we let one be aborted, they will all be aborted. People can be lazy and irresponsible and this is how they learn to be good people.

 

[timtofly]

I still think the mother has the right to choose.

 

[GamezRule]

Gah, let's just nuke Libya and call it a day.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The "good people" are apparently learning to execute and burn their own military leaders while blaming Gaddafi, as usual.

 

[innonimatu]

The "good people" are apparently learning to execute and burn their own military leaders while blaming Gaddafi, as usual.

The french just handed over to the rebels a few hundred million dollars stolen from the accounts of the government in Libya, but I'm sure that the fate of that money could not have had anything to do with the recent infighting between rebel leaders. After all, that money was necessary to pay the rebel liberators, because they had run out of banks to rob. Not that they're mercenaries, mind you, those are all on the bad side.

 

[Snorrius]

Keep your money in French banks.

 

[Winner]

The french just handed over to the rebels a few hundred million dollars stolen from the accounts of the government in Libya, but I'm sure that the fate of that money could not have had anything to do with the recent infighting between rebel leaders. After all, that money was necessary to pay the rebel liberators, because they had run out of banks to rob. Not that they're mercenaries, mind you, those are all on the bad side.

Of course, the former owner of this money, the glorious progressive regime of our dear infallible leader Muammar Gaddafi, earned all of it through its hard work and it put it in the Western banks only for the sole benefit of the Libyan people!



(Personally, I think the West should have kept all of it to at least partially pay for the intervention.)

 

[timtofly]

Of course, the former owner of this money, the glorious progressive regime of our dear infallible leader Muammar Gaddafi, earned all of it through its hard work and it put them in the Westerern banks only for the sole benefit of the Libyan people!



(Personally, I think the West should have kept all of it to at least partially pay for the intervention.)

Passing the money through the rebels hands did make them feel better about themselves though....

 

[illram]

Where is everyone that said this was "realpolitik," politics of the possible, yada yada? Doesn't look like what many thought was "possible" has actually been very possible.

And meanwhile, in Syria...

 

[pob]

Are you going to say oil? - we used to purchase it from Gadaffi. Does it make a difference who we purchase oil from at World market rates? It's the same product at the same price no matter who we buy it from.

Actually, this is untrue when it came to Libya: the oil had to be purchased through the state owned Central Bank of Libya. Gaddafi was even pushing for other African nations to sell oil by the Dinar rather than by the Dollar.

 

[r16]

practically off topic , but can be justified by the view that sees the Arabian Spring as a blunt instrument by the West . Maybe .

achso , it appears Turkish Military is needed for a little escapade . This must be why America confidently expects Turkish gratitude for some ease of the pressure . This year's magnificient university exams produced yet another surprise . There has been a computer glitch , a miscalculation , of course , and the scores of many military high school graduates have been increased ; neo-Ittihadists giving a lease of another year before they infiltrate college level military schools that produce lieutenants . Equally , now we hear the armed forces can continue protecting the Republic , with a "minor" addition to the relevant law .

many a splendid victory and feats of bravery of the West have gone unrecorded , even unnoticed . It is intented to give every possible opportunity across the whole spoectrum to get them realized . For real .

so ... It is a shame for BBC to become a source of hinting the correct way when it comes to unruliness in the world . Turks are supposed to know what to do with their long border with Syria is a paraphrased form of the sentence that came between weapons smuggling from Lebanon to Syria and was followed by the weapons smuggling from Iraq to Syria . We don't send arms if there is a must , we send armies . Those who encourage our state grade fools with the glory of a resurgent Ottoman Empire of the 21st Century should also prepare themselves for a siege of Vienna . ı hear the Poles are kinda short of cavalry , but interdiction targets in the operational depth as per NATO standarts have already been listed . [devilish smiley here ?]

if the West wants a war in Syria , it surely doesn't need Turkey . Don't feel bad , you didn't need us in Libya .

 

[Ayn Rand]

practically off topic , but can be justified by the view that sees the Arabian Spring as a blunt instrument by the West . Maybe .

achso , it appears Turkish Military is needed for a little escapade . This must be why America confidently expects Turkish gratitude for some ease of the pressure . This year's magnificient university exams produced yet another surprise . There has been a computer glitch , a miscalculation , of course , and the scores of many military high school graduates have been increased ; neo-Ittihadists giving a lease of another year before they infiltrate college level military schools that produce lieutenants . Equally , now we hear the armed forces can continue protecting the Republic , with a "minor" addition to the relevant law .

many a splendid victory and feats of bravery of the West have gone unrecorded , even unnoticed . It is intented to give every possible opportunity across the whole spoectrum to get them realized . For real .

so ... It is a shame for BBC to become a source of hinting the correct way when it comes to unruliness in the world . Turks are supposed to know what to do with their long border with Syria is a paraphrased form of the sentence that came between weapons smuggling from Lebanon to Syria and was followed by the weapons smuggling from Iraq to Syria . We don't send arms if there is a must , we send armies . Those who encourage our state grade fools with the glory of a resurgent Ottoman Empire of the 21st Century should also prepare themselves for a siege of Vienna . ı hear the Poles are kinda short of cavalry , but interdiction targets in the operational depth as per NATO standarts have already been listed . [devilish smiley here ?]

if the West wants a war in Syria , it surely doesn't need Turkey . Don't feel bad , you didn't need us in Libya .

In the politest way possible, your style of English does not make a lot of sense to me. Do you know any native English speakers who can help you with your grammar? English sentences tend to be built around the subject - every sentence must have one. Also, commas and fullstops (, .) don't have spaces before them, just after.

 

[Dachs]

To be fair, few would have disagreed with them. I had no idea how ineffective NATO or the rebels were going to be.

If there is one maxim in modern warfare, it is this: air power cannot win a war by itself.

 

[r16]

native English speakers are kinda thinking 101 ways of roastin me over fire .

 

[RedRalph]

If there is one maxim in modern warfare, it is this: air power cannot win a war by itself.

Definitely. Remember when the maxim was the exact opposite?

 

[MobBoss]

Definitely. Remember when the maxim was the exact opposite?

Its never been the exact opposite.

However, in Libya's case we arent trying to push that maxim very hard. Only just a little bit to keep things stirred up there.

 

[civ_king]

In Gadhafi's Libya, Boy Scouts become gravediggers​

The Libyan war continues to grind forward, with no end on the horizon, and the scale of the mounting casualties is reflected in the hands and faces of the Boy Scouts. The teenagers in their pressed white uniforms have rough calluses, now, after six months of labour in the main graveyard on the edge of Benghazi. They gaze out at the headstones with tired eyes, at rows of graves that stretch endlessly into the afternoon haze. These youths have become grave-diggers, and the profession gives them the seriousness and dignity of older men.

Before the violence started, the Benghazi Boy Scouts behaved almost like the Scouts in any other part of the world. They went camping in the desert, ran fundraisers, helped the needy, and picked up litter from the streets.

“Mostly we played football, before all of this,” said Mohammed El-Bagrmi, 16, an engineering student. “Now we dig graves.”

The Boy Scouts were among the few international organizations permitted under the regime of Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, because they were viewed as politically neutral, and the Scouts continued in that spirit during the rebellion. By working in the graveyard, the young men stay away from the front lines.

“If I sent them to fight, I would lose all the principles of Scouting,” said Ali Mohammed Al-Zaydi, 43, who has led the same troop of Scouts for 26 years.

As he spoke, rivers of sweat ran down his face and through his salt-and-pepper beard, soaking his homemade Scout uniform. His small troop has maintained a gruelling pace in recent months. They built 60 graves a day at the beginning of the uprising; now it’s an average of 12, as the eastern front near the port town of Brega settles into a grim routine. Each side fires volleys of rockets across the desert at enemy lines, and ambulances race up the long highway to Benghazi.

Some of the dead end up in graves decorated with huge wreaths, like the heavily ornamented resting place of General Abdel Fatah Younis, whose mysterious assassination continues to breed dissent among the ranks.

Other graves contain small herb gardens, or bowls of seed to attract birds; locals believe that birds can summon God’s mercy with their beautiful supplications. Many plots contain no markings except a four-digit number scratched into wet concrete, indicating one of the many anonymous dead in the chaos of recent months.

Underground, the graves are all identical. An excavator scoops out a shallow trench in the orange dirt, and Scouts finish it off with hoes and shovels. Then they build rectangular compartments from concrete blocks.

For hours, there isn’t any sound in the graveyard except the squeaking of a rusty wheelbarrow, the scraping of a trowel on wet mortar, and the chinking of a hand-axe that the Scouts use to trim rough edges from the blocks.

The graveyard is the size of several football fields, but Mr. Al-Zaydi predicts that he will need to find a new place to bury the dead if the war continues at this pace for the next two months.

It does look as though Benghazi will need another graveyard this year.

The rebel advance on Tripoli has been slow, and the only hope for a quick resolution is a negotiated settlement. Several NATO countries recently floated the idea of allowing Col. Gadhafi to remain inside Libya if he were stripped of power, something initially endorsed by the rebel leadership and then quickly disavowed as the rebels had trouble selling the idea of negotiations to their rank-and-file.

This is a key problem: as the death toll mounts, public opinion hardens, and it becomes more difficult to strike a deal that might finally end the work of grave-diggers.

Even the young Boy Scouts see no reason to talk with Col. Gadhafi.

“Some people don’t want any negotiations with him at all, and others accept negotiations if he goes away from Libya,” said Ahmad Al-Shaykhi, 16, wearing a Baden-Powell pin on his uniform. “But many people want him dead.”

He paused while heavy guns thundered at a rebel training field in the distance.

“I think the problem is that no other country wants him,” Mr. Al-Shaykhi added.

When asked whether this meant the Scouts would keep digging graves, he looked thoughtful.

“Yes, maybe, but we hope not. We don’t want to continue this war. But he must leave. We will not stop until he’s gone.”

The Scouts were joined in the graveyard by a pair of tough young men, who had just returned from the battlefields. Firas Busnayna, 21, hunched next to the grave of his cousin and unzipped a small leather-bound copy of the Koran. He mumbled verses while his friend Khayralla Al-Ammari, 22, stood nearby. They had fought on all the major fronts in the east, and were preparing to leave the following day for more action near Misrata.

“We will not accept negotiations unless Gadhafi steps down, leaves the country and faces a fair trial,” Mr. Al-Ammari said.

When Mr. Busnayna finished his holy verses, he gestured at his cousin’s simple plot. “We lost him, and for what?” he asked. “For Gadhafi’s departure. That’s why we lost so many people. We cannot accept less.”

“Won’t that take a long time?” he was asked.

“I don’t want to be a pessimist, but I think it will require a long time,” Mr. Busnayna said. “The decisive battle will be in Tripoli, and Gadhafi has bribed many people there and bought their loyalty. The problem is that these people now feel they cannot turn against him.

“Their destiny is linked to his.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...oy-scouts-become-gravediggers/article2122236/

That's horrible

 

[r16]

now the Prime Minister's wife has long been reported of being of Arabian extraction . Doesn't mean a single thing , considering my family emigrated from Bulgaria yet ı am %1000 certain ı am Turkish . With 3 zeros in that number . Stressing differences make it sure differences will be noticed . What's more it would have been actually risky considering pro-democracy papers - as rated by their opposition to militarist dictatorship - are getting to publish articles on why winners of the elections have the right to establish ghettos for those who don't fit in . Initially homosexuals and heteros with low morals such as drug addicts . No risk for me of course , ı have a starship up there under cloak , the beam me up when the asylum falls . And why , all the crew hail from North of UK .

chief among the supporters is one soft spoken liberal who was at the forefront of the long running liberation for headscarves movement whom ı first noticed when he declared Bandırma was 210 metres long (hence a luxurious transatlantic) , Bandırma being famous in the "establishment of the republic mythology" as an old deathtrap of a ship that took Mustafa Kemal to Samsun for the national struggle . Indeed we have been dynamiting the old structures to look good , yeah to look good in the eyes of our to be subjects . To be popular in the eyes of those primitives to our East and South . As if they would accept us in any position but servitude . There are those people who welcomed the Arab Awakening as a glorious chance to become something considerably better . We would be the instrument of the West , bring democracy to entire Middle East and reap fortunes out of it . Considering ı saw one talking about the armed Sunni insurgents and how they were provoking the no less provocative Alawites of Syria , ı have a tiny practically subatomic level belief that it is beginning to sink in . They wanted Abu Dhabis and Dubais delivered to their hands , now we are supposed to fight for Tel This and Tel That . Not that we will be able to keep them in the end . The game is about eventual destruction of a country that lies to North of Syria and to South of the Blacksea . Considering all the rabid-racist-ugly Nationalists in that particular country are kept silent with the promise of the loot of the ethnic cleansing that will be conducted in the West and beginning it to voice it and the East where neither police nor the military can not enter certain towns , it is indeed orbital bombardment our allies deserve . And of course even that avenue is about to be hijacked , those MPs responsible for the new constitution should keep their fingers out the discussions of the new world war coming . You know it took months to drag Turkish Foreign Ministry out of lolling the American public prediliction for conspiracies and UFOs . Don't you have enough on your plate already ?

the speaker of the parliament might happily do his duty of cursing the bloody seperatists but we would rather have him talk some sense to the MP that took down the flag from the customs and declared his autonomous region can be entered with a passport . Indeed the the month of August was one of victories for the Turkish military , though it is only for the new protocol rules that say PM and the speaker will now be celebrating the armed forces day of August 30th . This is not an election , you don't need to impress the militarists to command them . Nothing stops the courts from arresting them afterall.

naturally we blame Americans even for our own foibles , considering there was a real serious book that was printed and recommended to those whom spoke Turkish at home and work where we were defeated in space by the US in a bloodless battle . Ah , how humanitarian . Are we really supposed to believe that we will be allowed to last until 2050 ? Democracy works when individual rights are respected ; democracy destroys when it becomes a cloak for dictatorships or American plans that demand a country should exchange part of its territory for a promise of parts of other countries . We will all be buried 16 feet under , not 6 , by the time we make sense and don't forget to dance over our graves , our dear friends in the turkish think tanks and intelligentsia . We are losers anyhow .

for it transpires ( only to weirdos and nuts ) America does not forgive those who think 56000 people who found jobs [by the day Standart and Poors was about to declare a downgrade of America's hallowed credit rating] actually do not exist or rather it is a glitch that erased their applications , or indeed radios reported here that US debt was already over 15 trillion by the day of the deal . One really likes the North Korean claims of 65 trillion Washington owes them , too .

yeah, those were the days when our TV shows were the darlings of the Arab world and we were a rising star never to fall down . All that took us from joining the bloodbath in Libya turns out to be a desire to keep our good name for the day we were to invade Syria . The PM even said Syria is an internal affair for Turkey . Until today ı was thinking he might have some relatives on his wife's side down the border , but no , even a Syrian journalist said the two countries were supposed to unite . Which ı was thinking to be a Shengen deal . It would make real sense for the Syrians . We would run amok for our occupied territory on the Golan Heights , get our gangrape courtesy of USA and Syrians would liberate their occupied territory in Hatay and give freedom to suppressed Kurds . What a union would do for us , ı really don't know . Yet it surely doesn't stop the commentators . Though of course that would look quite Nazistisch to the world public opinion , that Turkey should have territorial claims out of a no-visa , no-passport deal and we now hear there are one and a half million of Türkmen people living there , in addition to another million and a half who have forgotten to speak Turkish .

my dear Young American will you mind shutting up Turkish commentators who are so seriously into bringing democracy into our backyard in the Arab lands or shall we write down their eagerness in extending our influence to the justification paper we are scribbling for the orbital thing , next to your smallpox blankets , Western Hemisphere defence measures and glorious Cold War operations ?